


Life For the Living

by unsettled



Category: The Long Firm
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-05
Updated: 2010-08-05
Packaged: 2017-10-10 23:09:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/105429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unsettled/pseuds/unsettled
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Here's the thing Len is beginning to realize; until now, he's never really known Harry.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Life For the Living

Here's the thing Len is beginning to realize; until now, he's never really known Harry.

Sure, he's known him for years, knows every published story better than those who wrote them; knows Harry's real history even better than the stories, the legends. Knows any number of things that will never appear in publication. He knows Harry's dreams, his aspirations, and to a degree, his vulnerabilities, better than any still living soul, better than Harry himself, he thinks. Any yet – and yet, until now – until he's been pulled in; half protesting, half dry mouthed anticipation, not knowing what the hell he's doing for the first time in his life, and finding it so much harder than he thought to give a damn; pulled in to Harry's world. Harry's mad, crazy, fully lived world like every other poor soul who's chanced to brush shoulders with him.

It's not until now, sun drenched with a lingering taste of foreign beer in his mouth, writing to avoid looking at Harry, who's draped over the lounge chair like some decadently spoiled creature, bared arms and bare feet sending a slow flush across Len's skin – it's not until now that he's actually met Harry. The person he came to know in prison, the person he received cheekily coded letters from and visited and worried about and raged with jealousy over, the person with eyes so sharp they'll cut you open, have you spilling your secrets before you can even remember why they were ever secret, eyes that don't give a damn about the world, blank and empty even in rage - those eyes are still there, still sharp and wordlessly compelling - but now Len can see what had been missing all the time he'd known Harry, all those long years Harry was trapped by stone and steel and surrounded by petty minds and posturing toughs. All he'd ever known was half a man, a bare fraction of what Harry was. There's an intensity to him now that rivals that of any radical or idealist or mad, crazy bastard Len has ever met, and it _burns_. Lights Harry up, turns all those sidelong glances and half mocking smiles – smirks – into something approaching, something, something he didn't have a name for, but it sends his mind fumbling for words, sets his hands to shaking.

He looks down at his notepad, and he's supposed to be writing down the educated words Harry's spilling out, low and soft around the edges, memory and drink bringing the thick curl of class to his accent, but he's struck instead by his own memory:

_"Very well organized crime," Harry says, and Len sips from his beer, turns his head, and Harry's standing there, bottle knocked back like it's the first decent beer he's had in too many years to count – and it probably is – head tilted up, that long clean expanse of neck working, smooth and ever so faintly damp with the barest sheen of sweat, utterly tempting…_

He'd swallowed and looked away, and now he's staring at blank pages and thinking about what he isn't seeing, isn't tasting, and he should be getting used to this by now – he'd long ago wrapped his mind around the fact that apparently he _was_ capable of wanting another man – a certain man – far more than any other woman, but that's only to be expected when it's Harry fucking Starks. He'd grown used to the idea that he could – did – want him, but this is so much more than that, as though his want has multiplied tenfold with the reemergence of Harry's striking personality.

"So you mean you never called the police," he says, and Harry favors him with a grin.

"Exactly."

*

A couple of beers later, he's feeling the pleasant buzz that's just this side of sober. Harry's cooling his feet, rolled-up trousers and shirtsleeves and gaping collar exposing too much prison pale skin, and Len's given up all pretense of scribbling notes, the pad lying forgotten in his lap as he watches Harry, listens to Harry's voice, roughened and smoothed by smoke, by alcohol, by the taste of freedom, by reminiscing, and he's on the edge of his seat with Harry's words – well, as on the edge as he can get, reclined like this. Harry stands, stalks toward him with something warm and fond and vibrantly alive coloring those eyes, that he'd never thought to see like this, glinting off the edge of him, and he has to laugh because "We went after them," is so _Harry_, is so perfectly appropriate for the man Harry would become.

Harry perches on the end of his lounger and leans forward, elbows on knees, still speaking; grinning, his eyes flitting across Len's face as if searching for something. Len can only hope his thoughts aren't as blatantly obvious as he feels they are.

"Two people, knowing they're alive; two people doing something they'll remember for the rest of their lives," and Len – he _knows_ Harry's in that moment of high flying aliveness; that all it would take is one spark, one move, and they'd never forget it. He wonders what it would be like to live so fully, to be as in that moment as Harry lives all of his life; all he'd have to do is lean forward a little more, just a little, tilt his head, part his lips, and the notepad would slide from his lap and Harry would, Harry would… There's a moment in which he can act, and then Harry's eyes shift to the side, lost in some thought, some memory, and the moment's lost. Harry's talking about fearlessness, and Len knows he'll never be fearless, never know a moment without the tang of fear in the back of his throat, the tang he's tasting now.

*

"Were you happy?" Because Harry's told him about the lows, the madness, the frenetic partying, the good times – but there's a difference between doing well and being happy, between having a good time and being _happy_.

Harry laughs it off, but Len can't let it go now; he wants to know. "Never happy?" he adds, prodding, and Harry starts to grin again, and then … then stops. The grin turns softer, turns bittersweet, and his eyes shift, a glimpse of the past in them.

"Once," he says, "when my boy-" His voice catches, hitches, and his face, his face when Len looks up again, caught by the break, "-when my boyfriend Tommy was alive-" his face is stripped, is bared, pain still raw, lying atop a deep longing that laces his words, curls round his vocal cords and tightens them, till he has to force the words out. "He was a lovely boy." The fondness that colors his words, his expression – somehow, though all the time he's known Harry, Len's never thought of him as, as someone who loved.

He'd imagined – how could he not? – what it might be like to be with Harry, but he'd never – he'd never thought of something as emotional, as real, as deeply caring as Harry's words at this moment. Never thought to see the hole that remains in the heart of him.

"Then Tommy went. And Jimmy," with a wry twist of his mouth, as though it's nothing, and that alone is sharp enough to wound Len. Harry drifts for a moment, lost on the tide of memories, of people he cared for that never seemed to care back as much, stricken; then he gathers back the words he's put out there between them, brittle on the table, gives Len a line: "Even bad people get sad sometimes."

_You're not a bad person_, Len wants to say. _You're human, that's all. _

Doesn't say it; allows Harry to shove it aside with distractions.

*

He's asking a question – he hasn't asked many, content to let Harry simply talk – when someone else appears. He assumes it's the absent Jock, confirmed when Harry rises, and he watches with amazement at the switch in Harry's manner, the way he interacts with the people on his level – no, the people below him, because Harry would never acknowledge another on his level. The intensity remains undiminished, but there is a sudden steel to him, a quiet danger that presses at the congenial air he dons. Harry introduces him, "Our Len," and Len doesn't miss the quick fire look Jock gives him, the _assumption_ in it, and he can only think, _I wish_, before they're adjourning to a different table, beers in hand.

*

There's something very telling, Len thinks, about the fact that Harry's first reaction is irritation. Len's still processing the thought that there's a body in the pool, still wondering if he should go for help or make a very unmanly noise or just keep standing here, and Harry: Harry's thinking about forensics and handguns and setups.

For a moment, Len's not sure if the banging at the door is in his head or actually real, and then Harry looks up and curses. Len's never seen a body before, one that isn't confined to glossy paper and smells of nothing but ink, and his mind is stuttering – they were just talking, just a moment ago, just – Harry brushes past him, shakes him from his daze. "Come on. Run," and that's an easy enough order to follow when all he wants to do is run.

He follows, Harry always ahead of him, and when they burst out of the trees there's a taxi on the road, thank god for random chances. The driver is firing off questions in Spanish, and Harry's trying to get across with blunt volume; he's never managed to pick any up, never made any effort. Len pulls his scattered wits together long enough to piece some half remembered phrases into an answer, blurts out the first thing that comes to mind: Pete's English Bar. Harry turns to him, eyebrows raised in something, surprise maybe, and Len doesn't even have any thoughts to spare for pride that he's managed to outthink Harry for once.

It's a long, tense drive; every time he starts to say something, Harry cuts him off with a look, a shake of his head, a terse word. They pull up at Pete's bar, get out and walk in, all casual, like there's no blood on the soles of their shoes, like there's not a gun in Harry's pocket, like there's nothing on their minds but some food that looks familiar. Pete's affable enough, looks to be helpful, and Harry is talking to him like this is nothing new, that this is something he's dealt with before and before and before, and it is. Len had known, but he hadn't, he hadn't really dwelt on it; now he's seeing far more of the criminal mind than he'd ever wanted, so lost and out of place that he hardly knows which way is up, which way is out.

Harry pulls out the gun, lays it out as though it's the most natural thing in the world – Pete reacts like Len wants to, but Len doesn't dare – he half turns away and stares out into the bar, because if someone saw… he can't keep this up, he's not like Harry.

He allows the next few hours to blur, to slip in under his skin and hide away, until he'll be ready to deal with this, which will never come. He can feel them, memories tightening under his skin, and maybe he takes a little more of the weed than is his share, maybe he grabs a beer or two more, maybe he lets the shock settle in, lets himself become comfortable with the shake of his mind.

Which is probably why he doesn't quite register what is going on when the car stops, when Harry gets out and takes off down the fancy driveway. He's a second slow, a second behind, still muddling through what's going on, but he's sure this can't be good, because lately things have been going more and more wrong every time Harry gets involved. He's not even sure it's really Harry's fault, but Harry's always there, like some catalyst. He jumps out, slams the door behind him and runs after Harry. "It doesn't matter any more," he tells him, desperate to turn him back.

"It matters to me," Harry says, and Len bites his tongue to avoid saying it, to avoid saying _that's because you don't let go of things, that's what your problem i_s. "I'm just going to talk to him," and even Len doesn't believe that. Harry's going on about endings, about the book, and there, right there, is a perfect example of not letting go of things; and then Harry pulls out a gun, that goddamn gun, pulls out another one, and Len's mind goes blank as Harry tosses it to him. He's terrified to catch it, terrified not to, and there is no way this is not going to end badly, he can just _tell_.

He's never held a gun, doesn't know a single useful thing about guns, and if Harry is expecting him to be backup, he's about to be disappointed. He should go, should turn around and leave right now, would if it wasn't for the fear that Harry will just drag him back, will pin him in place with a glance. Except that's not true; there's a little voice in the back of his head, in the curl of Harry's smile that says, _you haven't run yet_.

And he hasn't.

The door is answered by someone almost familiar, someone unfazed by a gun in their face - Moony, that's it, the corrupt detective. He'd brought Harry papers of the man's downfall in jail. Len does his best to look something other than totally lost, and how is it possible that Harry becomes more and more polite, more precise and calm even when he has a gun in hand? Because he has a gun in hand? All the gun has done to Len is make him shakier.

They're invited in – invited isn't really the word, but he can't think of a single one that would begin to describe this situation. Everything Harry says to Moony, the contempt that drips from every word; all the venom Moony flings back at him; it's all hazed and distant through a film of disbelief, as though there's a wall separating them from him, some experimental one-act play he's watching, unwillingly. It feels utterly unreal, and he clings to that with stubborn determination, latches onto the thought that it's not real, only to have it fly to pieces when Moony strikes Harry, sends him reeling back, strikes Harry, _Harry_, and no one does that, no one is such a fool; the sheer impossibility of it rips through Len's sad insistence that none of this is real. Len's frozen with indecision, with a curious blankness in his mind, until Harry shouts. Shouts, "Shoot him!", and Len's hands act entirely on their own, as they do any time Harry orders him, draw the gun and point it, shaking, and he can't shoot him, he can't, he _can't_…

"Not for this bastard…" and something, something just caves in, just snaps apart, and there's this noise, this noise like a gunshot, which is kind of funny because it _is_ a gunshot, and his world has narrowed down to the hunk of metal in his hands – metal with a life, with a mind of its own – and the man bleeding and cursing on the floor. Len's mouth is babbling on without sparing a thought for what it's saying, shit, he didn't, he didn't mean to, he didn't, oh god, he's sorry, he's so sorry, and Harry's voice snaps though the air again, "For fuck's sake, kill him!" and he flinches away from it, closes his eyes and his hand tightens and god, there's that noise again and he flings out his arm for balance because he thinks he's falling, because when he opens his eyes again there's this man, this man on the floor not moving, not, not, and he's never killed a man, he's never, he's thought he might want to kill a man, but he's never wanted, he's, he's, what has he done, what is, what has he done…

There's nothing but blood in front of his eyes, and he feels something faintly, a touch, on his hand, a voice, a voice he knows, a voice he's never heard like this, never heard like it's soothing, like there's someone frightened and lost in the room, feels hands round his on the base of the gun, and there's- for a terrible moment there's an urge to swing it around, because it's his fault, Harry's, if he hadn't brought Len into this, and Harry's voice cuts across the fragments of his rationality, "Let it go," and like everything Harry commands, he obeys.

"Good lad," and he's not, there's nothing here to praise for, nothing, and he thinks about punching Harry, about punching him in the face; but Harry's looking at him, really _looking_ at him, this crease between his eyebrows that Len's never seen, no matter how stressed he's seen Harry, looking at Len like he's _worried_ about something. Harry reaches out, holds his empty hand between them; Len grabs it, closes his eyes at the contact, and suddenly it's too much, it's not enough, and he stumbles forward, falls forward. Harry catches him, steadies him as he gasps out sobs and shakes, turns them clockwise until Len can no longer see the crumpled body over Harry's shoulder, except it doesn't matter because he's already buried his head in that shoulder. He feels Harry sigh, rather than hearing it, half deaf with the sound of blood rushing in his ears; feels a hand slide into his hair, cup the back of his head, and Harry lets him wear himself out, holds him up until his breath evens and he's limp with exhaustion.

Pulls back for a look at him, and Len closes his eyes; he doesn't want to see what Harry's seeing, see the wreck he is at this moment. "Come on," Harry says, and leads him around the body, leads him up the stairs, into the first bedroom he finds. Sits Len down and draws away, and Len keeps his eyes closed as he tightens his hand on Harry's. Keeps them closed as Harry stops at the end of their joined hands, and he can feel Harry looking at him, feel the edge of those eyes, Harry weighing him up, finding him wanting, still, _still_, and Harry's going to untangle his hand any second now, going to go downstairs and take care of the body instead…

He's not fully unprepared when Harry steps forward instead, pushes Len's shoulders down until he's sprawled across the bed, Harry looming over him – he's not unprepared, because after all this is, he thinks, what he wanted – but he is surprised. "Open your eyes," Harry says, and he does, he must.

Harry's got one knee on the edge of the bed, his hands denting the mattress above Len's shoulders, not even touching him, but suffocating him all the same. He looks down at Len, a curl of disarrayed hair plastered to his temple, shifts his weight to one hand and runs the other down the curve of Len's face. Asks quietly, "Do you even know what you are asking for?" in a tone that – it's not amusement, because if it was he'd be up and gone before Harry could finish his sentence, but it's something curious – that somehow leaves Len with the certainty that this isn't something Harry does, this asking. This warning.

"I think so," he whispers, and he's lying, because he doesn't have a fucking clue what he's asking for, only that he wants it so badly it's drowning out the panic in his blood, and he wants anything that will keep his mind from filling up with blood and gunshots and blind obedience again. Harry's eyelids lower, lazy, hungry, certain. He leans down and breathes into Len's mouth, teases him into tilting his chin up, covers Len's mouth with his own, a kiss that starts out careful, only to disregard all warnings and turn hard within seconds, turn hot and rough and breath-stealing.

Harry shifts, settles himself alongside Len, the contact a shock and a sudden need, half beside and half on top, one hip resting atop Len's while their legs bracket each other. Len works his fingers between the buttons of Harry's shirt, brushes skin for a second before he wraps his fingers around buttons, tugs them loose until he can slide his hands along the plane of Harry's torso, brush his fingers down Harry's spine, palms sweaty and sticking against Harry's skin, and he's still exquiste despite his age, despite the years of abuse and prison and fighting to maintain, fighting to the top, hasn't lost one bit of sparse elegnace. Still slenderer than Len, too slender prison thinness, but never, never, god forbid, weak, never fragile; he's lean bones and muscle and skin, sharp lines of postmodern art. _Does anyone ever tell you how striking you are?_, he wonders, but doesn't dare say it out loud. Thinks it, thinks about the slope of Harry's shoulders and the curl of his smile and the hard heat lying against his thigh.

There's a twist, and Harry's pressed down against him, a narrow thigh between his legs, firm pressure rocking slowly, too slowly. Len struggles for movement, for the freedom to rut into that relentless slide, but Harry has him pinned too tightly, sets the pace himself, torturously slow; Len whines, begs with exposed throat and restless hands and bitten lips. Harry laughs, low and cruel, "Be patient, boy," and Len groans.

"Talk to me," he pants, "please," because he's been listening to that voice for so long, listening to all the variations it possesses, from the smooth edge of disappointed anger to the coppery blood tang of fury to the long sweet drawl of memory, the warm citrus of teasing, the under his skin buzz of humor; now he wants to learn what flavor it takes in lust, what words Harry will use to render him no more than a shell.

Harry tells him he's an idiot, that he's not as useless as he thinks. That he's living the wrong sort of life, that he doesn't really regret a moment of it. That he's infinitely fuckable, tells him how he looks spread out right now, words that Len can't quite believe, but he wants to, oh, he wants, talks and moves and whispers against Len's skin, and Len is rapidly losing any sense of what Harry's actually saying, losing sense of any hint of control, caught and held in that long moment that's always too short, where his mind loses language, loses thought, loses being in exchange for sensation.

*

When he's remembered how to move, he fumbles for a smoke, and Harry manages to get those long fingers in order first, lights one and takes a drag before passing it to Len. Len takes a deep breath himself, holds it in for a moment, smoke curling in his mouth and throat, seeping from his nose, passes it back to Harry. Who takes it; holds it loosely between his fingers as he leans over and kisses Len, takes an inhale of smoke straight from his lungs. Len's mind is going fuzzy around the edges, reaction and exhaustion creeping up on him with as little mercy as Harry has had. He turns his head, blinking at the shadows blurring his sight; looks at Harry, who is staring at the ceiling, blowing smoke upwards to hang heavy in the air. There's a shadow stretched across the side of his face, only it's not a shadow at all, but a coloring bruise from where that bastard – that dead bastard – hit him.

Len's not really thinking, which is the only explanation for why he stretches out his arm, lays his fingers against it gently, as though with a lover, a liberty he's not yet been offered. He can't say he's sorry – he's said that already, to the wrong person, to the right person – but this is his fault too; if he'd been more decisive, if he'd actually acted on his own for once instead of waiting for someone else to dictate his actions, if- No. No, it's no fault of his; Harry got distracted, had looked back to him to show off his fancy words and theories, things Len taught him, had looked back at the wrong moment, but he's still sorry for it, sorry for the dark mark marring Harry's face.

Harry lets him touch it for a moment, then turns his head to look at Len. "What?" he asks, almost challenging, like he knows what Len is seeing and doesn't like it. Len shakes his head, drowsily, unable to even begin to articulate, even within his own head.

*

When he wakes the next morning, there's tea on the bedside table, smoke and musk on the sheets, and an empty hollow in the bed. He goes downstairs, and there's a bare, clean spot on the floor as well, where there had been – something else – yesterday. Harry doesn't say anything, and Len finds himself reluctant to break the silence; it's not the heavy, oppressive, panicked silence that haunts so many morning after's, merely the silence of not having anything that needs to be said. Of not needing to say anything to understand each other. Of there not being anything they could say to make things clear. Clearer.

He follows Harry out the length of the dock, watches wordlessly as Harry boards the boat. There are words he should be saying, things waiting in his mouth to plead; Harry's cool as can be, nothing rattling that composure, back in his moment of excess.

"Should I still write it?" Len asks, just for something to say.

Harry looks surprised. "Yeah, of course," and they've run out of words again, including goodbyes, just standing, staring, silent. Harry steps forward, bends down and offers his hand. Len takes it; thinks for a moment of not letting go, of pulling himself up and stepping into the boat, _fuck it, I can write from Morocco as easily as from Spain, as from England_, actually living his life as fully and fearlessly as Harry. Of actually living.

Lets go.


End file.
